Category Archives: 7th Ohio Infantry

7th Ohio Infantry, Battle of Antietam, Battle of Cedar Mountain

1862: Frederick A. Seymour to Howard Battin

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The following letters were written by Frederick A. Seymour (1819-1903). He had Militia experience before the war and in 1860 was a 40 year old potter in Ravenna, Portage County, Ohio. He was commissioned Captain of Company G, 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry for 3 months service on 23 April 1861 and mustered out with them on 14 June. He was appointed Captain of the same company for a 3 year term on 14 June 1861. He assumed command of the regiment at Antietam after the next senior officer, Major Crane, took charge of the Tyndale’s Brigade. He resigned his commission on 17 April 1863. He reenrolled as Major of the 7th Ohio Infantry on 13 August 1863 but again resigned, on 29 March 1864.

In 1870 he was a farmer in West Hartford, CT. By 1900 he had retired there. He married Elvira Curtis (1834-) in February 1852 and they had a son Nathan.

To read a similar letter by Frederick written home after the battle of Antietam, see Dan Master’s Civil War Chronicles of September 22, 2017 for a post entitled: “The 7th Ohio Infantry at the Battle of Antietam.” The 7th Ohio Infantry served in Tyndale’s 1st Brigade, Greene’s 2nd Division, of Mansfield’s XII Corps at the Battle of Antietam.

Frederick wrote these letters to 39 year-old Howard Battin (1826-1882), a railroad conductor, who also kept a boarding house in Millersburg, Holmes county, Ohio.

Letter 1

[Editor’s Note: This letter describes the August 9, 1862, Battle of Cedar Mountain (or Slaughter’s Mountain, or Cedar Run) in which the 7th OVI participated and during which Colonel William R. Creighton was severely wounded, after which Major Orrin J. Crane assumed command. The regiment was at the front and engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict. Of the three hundred men engaged, only one hundred escaped unhurt. The Seventh OVI suffered more than any other Union regiment in this battle.]

Engraving of the Battle of Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862, from a sketch by Alfred R. Waud

Camp near Culpeper
August 14, 1862

I write this morning to let you know that I am still able to be around. For the last eight days if I had been at home, I should not have been able to be up at all but I felt better yesterday. I am so weak that I cannot walk half a mile. The morning of the fight I was terrible sick. I could keep nothing on my stomach a minute. We did not expect a fight that day. We had marched all night and got the order to make ourselves comfortable for the day. I had to ride in the ambulance. That night I was so sick I could not sit up. We had just got laid to rest for the day as we supposed when came the order bring up the troops. We were seven miles from Cedar Creek. The Rebels had driven in our pickets.

Col. William R, Creighton, 7th OVI

[When] we started, Col. [William R.] Creighton told me not to go but I thought I could ride in the ambulance till I got there, then I could stand it awhile. On the way there we had a great many men fall from sun stroke. It was a terrible hot day. Four of my men gave out by the way & could not go at all. When we came up, I went into the field after our men, had to walk half a mile. Had there but a few moments till the shells begin to come like hail around us. We were ordered forward. On we went to the top of the hill. Then they were to go double quick. I went as far as I could [but] had to fall out. I could not go farther. I sit down on the ground. Col. Creighton told me to go back before I got so far I could not get back. I sit and watched them till i could not stay there for the shells tore the ground all around me. Then I tried to get back over the hill. As I was going back, a horseman ran over me & nearly killed me. He was scared almost to death. I sit & watched the Boys till my heart sickened at the sight. They were cut like grass before the scythe. Our little regiment all alone to fight such terrible odds. For a good many minutes, the 7th [OVI] were alone & a great while Tyler’s old regiment was all alone with fifty thousand troops behind us and none to help us. It was so hard.

But enough. I hope I will get better for I have no one to help me now but Sergt. Dean all our book[s] to make out. I cannot leave now if I can sit up at all. I have tried to get my resignation papers ready but cannot get it done. All are so busy in care of our wounded. But if I am no better, I must leave for I cannot be up much longer. It seems hard to leave now when they are making such efforts to raise troops. I don’t know what is my duty to do. I cannot feel as though it was right to stay & not be able to get around. I shall do my duty if I know what it is. — Frederick

Letter 2

Harpers Ferry or Maryland Heights
September 21st 1862

This is the first time for ten days I have had time to write you. I wrote Rube the night of the Battle. I left Washington as I wrote you from Rockville, Maryland, & have been marching all the time since then, days and some nights all night. Then lay down without a blanket for our teams were back out of the way. When we reached Frederick City the Rebels left there without much of a fight. We left Frederick on Sunday the 14th. All the time from the 13th to the 15th [there was] terrible fighting on the mountains between Frederick City and Hagerstown. Our troops drove them out of the mountain with a terrible slaughter although they had a strong position. Gen. Cox made a good fight. His men did well for the first time they were under fire. The mountain roads were strewn with their dead. We followed as close as we could get for the size of our army, our right [wing] fighting them all the way for five days before we came up.

Lt. Col. Orrin J. Crane, 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (LOC)

On Wednesday the 17th we came up with them after marching all night, sire and tired. At four they opened on us and drove our men back half a mile on the right of the line which extended four or five miles. At five Gen. [George S.] Greene’s Division in which was our regiment, was ordered up to the front. At about six, we were engaged from that time till 3 in the afternoon. We were in the hottest of the fight in the center of the line. Such terrible fighting was never seen. The Rebels fought with a desperation worthy a better cause. They were bold and perfectly reckless. Our boys fought with determined energy that has ever characterized the 7th [Ohio] Regiment. [Maj. Orrin J.] Crane was commanding the regiment. I acted as Major. I had command of the regiment for a week but Crane came up in time for the fight. I would liked to have had our boys in the fight but it is all right, I suppose.

In the afternoon, Gen. Greene ordered us back to rest as we had run out of ammunition. We fell back onto a field to rest and they brought up fresh troops. We had a great many troops not engaged. When we fell back, Crane went off. Then came the order to the front again. I led the boys up but as fortune for our weary boys, they did not have to fight again that night but lay on our arms all night ready for the fight in the morning which the darkness had stopped.

In the morning artillery and skirmishing commenced at break of day. I was detailed to bury the dead of our regiment. I took eight men and went to the front and found our pickets and sharpshooters hard at work but I was bound to find our men which I did after a great deal of trouble. After one man—Corporal [Martin] Lazarus—fell, I went back under fire to see if he was alive and hear what he had to say, but poor fellow was dead before I could get back to him. By his side I found H. L. [J. B.] Carter of Co. F. He too was dead. I took their blankets off them and rolled them up and had to leave them for shot and shell came thick around me. In the night they were taken away but after long search, I found them, took our stretchers, carried them half a mile to a burying ground & gave them a soldier’s burial. I placed a board at the head plainly marked so at any time their remains can be obtained. After cold weather, it would be utterly impossible to get them now. I did all I could for them. They were decently buried in a church yard. I had none but him killed, 9 wounded, some of them badly, but another such a scene as that battlefield—may God spare me the sight at which the heart grows sick & shudders at the terrible sight.

As we marched over the bloody field on our way here on the ground on which our Regiment—the 7th [Ohio]—were engaged, more than 2,000 dead Rebels in less than a mile in all conceivable forms possible to think of festering and decaying in the sun as the Rebels fled and left them unburied. I can give no description nor can any person picture the horrid scene. They lie in countless numbers for miles around. But they have left Maryland & gone to Virginia again. Where we will go now is not known but I presume we will have to chase them up the Valley again. Gen. McClellan was with or near us all the time. The boys gave cheer upon cheer as he passed us. Our own General in the fight was wounded. As he passed us, he paid us a high compliment. He said he would see we had justice done us but he was severely wounded and probably will not live. But God’s will be done.

We have lost some good officers. Gens. [Joseph K.] Mansfield & [Jesse] Reno & others of lesser rank. Our wounded are numerous but not so many killed as one would suppose for so bloody a battle for the estimation of army men, it was the great battle. Oh may I never be called on to go through another such a day. I am nearly worn out marching all day, lying on the ground nights without so much as a blanket, but God will protect and he has kindly preserved me thus far. He will do all things right. — Frederick

7th Ohio Infantry

1861: Co. A, 7th Ohio Infantry to his Sister

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The following letter was written by a soldier in Co. A, 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). Unfortunately he did not sign his letter or there was, at one time, a second sheet. He wrote the letter to his sister but does not give her name. We only know that she (and probably he) lived in East Cleveland, Ohio.

Transcription

Camp Lookout [West Va.]
August 19, 1861

Dear sister mine,

You must excuse me for not answering your letter sooner as I have had so much else to do that I did not know what to do first but as the old saying is better late than never, I take his opportunity to pen you a few lines to let you know that I am well and hope that this may find you and all the inhabitants of East Cleveland in the same good health. I am here and have been ever since I arrived and shall be until I leave.

We expect a fight in the course of time if not before. There is a body of troops under Gov. Wise some twenty miles from here and we have them surrounded on every side and they have got to fight their way out or surrender. And we are the weakest force, it is probable that they will attack us if they do and over power us. We will retreat and fall back and join Cox where the rebels will meet their reward. I hope they will attack us for we are getting tired staying here and not have the fun of one good fight that we may show them what the 7th Regiment is made of.

Capt. Orrin J. Crane, Co. A, 7th OVI

Our company has had three or four skirmishes with the secessionists and killed ten or twelve and took a hundred prisoners at different times. Capt. [Orrin Johnson] Crane returned from a scout this morning and fetched four rebels and two horses with him. We are having fine times here. It [seems] about two weeks to me since we left Camp Dennison but it is nearly two months.

I am keeping a journal of all the doings of the 7th in Virginia which I shall fetch home with me when I come. I would send it if it was not for its getting lost on the road. We can send letters now without paying the postage on them but you will have to pay it when you take them out of the office. Write whether you got the verses that I sent you or not. I shall send you the Star Spangled Banner in this.

Write all the news and how the folks are all getting along. It rains every other day here. It is not very warm here but muddy as it can be. If we are attacked here, we may stay a month. We can’t tell when we are a going to march an hour beforehand,, not where we are going. Col. [E. B.] Tyler says that we will be sent home by Christmas but I don’t care when we are nor when we ain’t. [no signature]

7th Ohio Infantry, Battle of Chancellorsville, Battle of Fredericksburg

1863: Arthur Tappan Wilcox to Lucien Henry Wilcox

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The following two letters were written by Arthur (“Art”) Tappan Wilcox (1834-1902), the son of Capt. Franklin Wilcox (1797-1867) and Julia Ann Wilcox (1802-1859) of Lorain county, Ohio. He wrote the letter to his older brother, Lucien (“Lute”) Henry Wilcox (1830-1880).

Arthur Tappan Wilcox

Art was living in Sandusky, Ohio, at the time of the 1860 US Census. In 1861 he graduated from the law school at the University of Michigan and married Julia Morehouse soon after. That same year he enlisted into military service and was elected 2nd Lieutenant of the 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI), Co. E. He was promoted to Captain of Co. D for bravery and meritorious service. He participated in these battles: Cross Lanes, Virginia, where he was captured by the enemy and confined to various prisons; Dumfries, Virginia; Chancellorsville, Virginia; Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, Tennessee; and several battles in the state of Georgia. He mustered out of the 7th OVI on July 6, 1864. Soon, he reenlisted and became Colonel of the 177th OVI. On June 24, 1865, Colonel Wilcox was mustered out with regiment at Greensboro, North Carolina.

After the war was over, Wilcox resumed his work as a civil engineer. He worked on the construction of railroads, including the Union Pacific and the Canada Southern. A publication of the University of Michigan Alumni Association reports that Arthur Tappan Wilcox contracted yellow fever while working on bridges in Central America. He died of the disease at Port Limon, Costa Rica, on October 24, 1902. A biographical sketch of Arthur T. Wilcox which appeared in the book Itinerary of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, 1861-1864 closed with this statement about Colonel Wilcox: “He was a zealous officer and a brave man.” [Source: Sandusky History]

[Note: These letters are from the private collection of Brent Reidenbach and were transcribed and published on Spared & Shared by express consent.]

Letter 1

Camp Dumfries, Virginia
January 7th 1863

Dear Lute,

I have a little matter of business I wish you would attend to for me as I suppose you can do so easier than Mr. Wilbor. I wrote to him soon after sending my money to send $161.25 to Mr. Ralph Plumb of Oberlin for Capt. Shurtleff. Today I had a letter from Capt. Shurtleff saying that he had been advised by Mr. Samuel Plumb that the money had never been received. I ought to have directed the money sent to Samuel Plumb but still that should make no difference as all packages coming to Ralph Plumb are opened by him. They are brothers but Ralph is away in the army somewhere. Shurtleff’s solution is this—“The express agent at Oberlin is an old scamp & has probably stolen it.”

Mr. Wilbor has undoubtedly a receipt from the Express Co. & I wish you would get it and look into the matter. The sum is rather too large to lose—especially when it costs so much to live as it does here in the army. If necessary, go down to Oberlin & see Mr. Plumb and I will pay expenses.

We are still lying here quietly & I hope may remain so. The weather yesterday was decidedly rainy looking but has cleared off cold and we are feeling quite a touch of winter. Ed wrote to me sometime to try & get Gen. [Orlando B.] Willcox’s endorsement to a recommendation for his promotion. I wrote to Shurtleff & he says Gen. Willcox endorsed it without hesitation so you can tell him when you write to him.

Capt. Giles Waldo Shurtleff, Co. C, 7th OVI (OberlinCollege Archives)

Shurtleff thinks they had a warm time at Fredericksburg but says the horror of the fight was nothing compared to the suspense of lying with 50,000 men two days in Fredericksburg directly under the rebel guns, before recrossing, & he cannot conceive why the rebels allowed them to remain undisturbed.

We hear today that Rosecrans has gained a victory & taken Murfreesboro. Heaven grant it may be true. Also that our people are gaining ground at Vicksburg with every prospect of success. May that be true too. We need something to make amends for our want of success in Virginia.

Write to me, you and all the rest. So long as we are quiet you will hear from me quite often. There is a prospect of our staying here some time, unless the Confeds “come down on us” and make us “light out” which would be very uncivil on their part. But still, good as the prospect is of remaining, it don’t need more than half a dozen words from Headquarters to spoil all our great calculations.

I don’t reckon any of us will be sorry when the US brand wears out of our skins. It will be sort of pleasant to own one’s self again, if the property isn’t very valuable.

I must close up. Goodbye. Love to your wife and mine, Lottie and Father and the rest. Remember me to Capt. and Mrs. Parrish. Yours truly, — Art. T.

Letter 2

Camp near Aquia Landing, Virginia
Friday, May 15th 1863

Dear people at home,

George is writing to Clara, & I will put in a line to you though It can be nothing more, as it is already nearly meal time. I should have written again before this, but have been detailed on a Court of Inquiry nearly all the week, to examine into the conduct of a New York Officer charged with cowardice at Chancellorsville. It was a mixed up mess & we only got through last night.

We are all getting rested up & fel in good spirits, despite the non success of our movement south of the Rappahannock. I shouldn’t wonder if Gen. Joe [Hooker] is sorry he didn’t stay the other side of the river—especially since Stoneman’s report has come in. I can’t help thinking that we might have hung on a day or two longer & possibly given the story a better ending, though I will admit that individually, I felt more comfortable on the north side of the river. Our wounded have been mostly brought this side of the river. Our missing boys are not yet accounted for altogether. One of them, Sergt. Allen, we hear from some of the wounded who were paroled, was sent to Richmond as a prisoner, unhurt. The other, Brayton B. Williams, 1 I can hear nothing of.

Lee Raymond is in Ward I, Armory Square Hospital, Washington D. C. Please inform his mother. [Henry T.] Benton 2 is in some hospital there but I have not heard from him.

George says the money I sent got through safe. Write to me somebody. The mail is ready & I must stop. Love to all, — Art

1 Brayton B. Williams was taken prisoner at Chancellorsville on 3 May 1863 and returned to duty in mid November.

2 Henry T. Benton was wounded in the left knee at Chancellorsville on 3 May 1863 and discharged for disability on 7 March 1864.

7th Ohio Infantry, Gauley River

1861: William H. Overmire to his Mother

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The author of this letter only signed his name “Will” but he was clearly from an Ohio regiment and since he referred to the “Vienna boys,” my hunch was that he served in Co. H, 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). Checking the rosters for Ohio soldiers named William enlisting from Vienna, I found only one soldier that fit the description—Pvt. William H. Overmire who enlisted for three months in April 1861 in Co. H, 7th OVI and then reenlisted for three years after that 1st organization disbanded. William was wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia, on 9 August 1862, and there is no further record of him.

William’s letter includes a description of an incident that took place on the Gauley River on 24 July 1861 when the 11th OVI fired on a transport steamer and sunk it.

I could not find an image of Will but here is one of Stephen Burrows who also served in Co. H, 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Ancestry.com)

Transcription

Camp Gauley, Virginia
August 2nd 1861

It was with much pleasure that I received your letter of the 27th. I had just come off picket guard. Six of us (Vienna boys) were stationed about three miles from camp up on the opposite side of the river (we are upon the Gauley River about forty miles from Charleston). We lay under the shade of an apple tree all day. In the evening it rained and we went to a barn which was nearby where we lodged till next morning. During the day we met with a man who had been in the Rebel army but who had gone home on furlough and never returned. He told us he had been forced into the service about three months since. He told us that there had been about two thousand five hundred men in Gen. Wise’s army of which two thousand were Union men and that just this side of Charleston six hundred had deserted the army at one time and that they were continually deserting. Where Gen. Wise is or what he is going to do, we know not, but we have possession of the Kanawha Valley.

We had expected to have had several skirmishes before we reached our present position. We had prepared for a hard battle at Charleston but to our surprise when we reached there, the enemy had gone a few miles down the river. We came across a boat loaded with wheat which was bearing the American flag. Col. [Frizzellof the 11th [Ohio] Regiment placed some of his men in the bushes and they placed a canon upon the bank. He then asked who they were. They answered they were Kanawha Rangers. He asked them what they meant. They said they were northern troops. He asked again if they were Union men and they, thinking that there were but few on shore to oppose them not seeing those in the bushes, answered that they belonged to the Southern Confederacy. The Colonel then ordered to fire. When the cannon opened upon them, striking the furnace and throwing the fire all over the boat, a volley then opened upon them from behind the bushes when they all took to flight, leaving everything—tents, provision, guns, and all to the flames which had already highly spread. They burned another boat themselves above Charleston and marched on. We have pursued them to Gauley Bridge which they burned, the cost of which was $18,000. 1

We have now settled down for how long, I do not know. We are in a most delightful place, surrounded on all sides by lofty hills which we might call mountains. Upon the top of one of these hills I am now sitting. At my feet is a cool stream of water. I look down upon the camp and them look like pygmies.

Dear mother, you have spoken of my not writing soon while some of the others have written. We marched almost all the way after leaving Ohio. Those who were unable to march went aboard the boat. Many of the boys were unwell. They rode while I kept my health and marched. Thus you see they had abundance of time while I had none. Indeed, I might have found some time to have written, but after marching all day with my knapsack upon my back under the burning sun (for the sun comes down very hot here), a letter of mine should not have been very interesting. Thus is the apparent neglect, and not from a want of feeling for home for never did home appear more dear than now.

As for my wants, I am in want of nothing. Money I have no need of. But I must close as it is past noon and dinner is waiting. I am perfectly well and have been ever since I left home. The boys are all well and we are all in high spirits.

N. B. [Nota bene]—I had commenced writing home about the battle when on the other side of Charleston but before I could finish it, we were ordered to march. I suppose you have heard all about it now. Tell sis I received her letter just before we marched out of Charleston and was very happy to hear from her but was surprised at the question contained in that note. My love to all. May this find you enjoying health and happiness. Yours in filial affection, — Will

N. B.—i have not yet received that paper which Pa and Ben Smith sent. Excuse this letter for the mosquitoes bother me so I can hardly write at all.

1 This incident is described in A History of the Eleventh Regiment by Horton & Teverbaugh (1866), pp. 30-31, but it varies somewhat in the details. It was Lt. Colonel Frizzell of the 11th OVI that commanded the regiment on 24 July 1861 when on the march to Gauley’s Bridge, they encountered a steamboat loaded with troops crossing the river. “Hailing the boat, the Colonel asked what troops they were, and being answered by the interrogatory if ‘you’uns’ were rebels the Colonel responded, ‘All right—run ‘er up!’ and had not hte hoisting of the Union flag been too hastily ordered by some officer on the hill adjoining, a valuable loss of ammunition, stores and prisoners would have been easily captured. The rebel commander saw the flag, and the boat was put across to the opposite shore with all possible speed. Capt. Cotter soon succeeded in getting his six pounders in position, and a shell sent through the steamer not only greatly hastened the disembarkation of the rebels but set fire to the boat and charred and blackened timbers of the hull of which probably may yet be seen at low water at the foot of the shoals.”